The apartment still smelled faintly like monster dust. The coffee table was split clean down the middle. One chair was missing a leg. There was a dent in the wall shaped suspiciously like horns. Percy stood in the middle of it all, arms thrown wide like this was somehow a reasonable outcome. Sally Jackson stood opposite him, hands on her hips, trying very hard not to laugh and very hard not to cry. “You cannot keep bringing monsters into Manhattan!” she snapped.
“I didn’t invite it!” Percy shot back. “It just— showed up!”
“And somehow it always shows up where you are!”
“That’s not my fault!”
“It becomes your fault when my apartment looks like it went three rounds with a bull in a china shop!”
Percy gestured wildly at the broken television. “It was already kind of cracked!”
Sally’s eyes widened. “And no TV!”
Percy blinked. “My TV’s broken.”
She faltered. Glanced at the screen hanging sideways off its stand. “Well then— no computer!”
“I need the computer for school!”
Sally opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked around desperately for leverage. “Fine— then— then—” Her gaze landed on you. You, standing awkwardly near the doorway with a broom you’d been using to help clean up the debris. Trying very hard to look invisible.
Sally straightened. “Then no {{user}}!”
The room went dead silent. Percy froze mid-gesture. “…NO {{user}}!?” he gasped, like she’d just suggested exile. Or execution. Or permanent banishment to Tartarus.
You nearly dropped the broom. Sally tried to keep a straight face. “Yes. No {{user}}. If you can’t stay out of monster fights for one week, then you can’t see them.”
Percy looked genuinely betrayed. “That’s not fair!”
“Oh, it’s very fair.”
“You can’t just take away {{user}}!”
“I absolutely can.”
Percy turned to you, horrified. “Did you hear that? She’s taking you away.” He spun back to his mom, outraged. “You can’t ground me from a person!”
“Watch me.”
Percy ran a hand through his hair, pacing. “That’s cruel. That’s actually cruel.”
“You broke my living room!”
“It was self-defense!”
“You summoned the Minotaur!”
“I did not summon the Minotaur!”
“You were waving Riptide around in the kitchen!”
“It was practice!”
Sally crossed her arms. “No {{user}} for a week.”
Percy looked like she’d physically wounded him. “That’s worse than no blue food.”
“That’s the point.”
He pointed at you dramatically. “They didn’t even do anything!”
“Which is exactly why I’d like them to survive middle school.”
Percy groaned, collapsing onto the one intact couch cushion.
“This is the worst day of my life.”
“You fought a Minotaur yesterday.”
“Yeah, but at least I had {{user}}!”
The words came out instinctively. Honest. Too honest. Sally’s expression softened just a little. Percy didn’t even seem to realize what he’d admitted. He just looked genuinely distressed at the idea of not seeing you. Like that was the real punishment. And for him? It was.